The Car Gadgets Debate

When is too much of a good thing bad for you? Car gadgets have come on in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years and drivers are finding more and more that new cars are more like a jet fighter than a way to get home. Humans have always been impressed by new technology from the first days when we left caves and a pointed stick was considered the height of gadget fashion.

However, have we become a little too trusting of technology and do we simply accept the gimmicks and toys in new cars without questioning their usefulness. BMW started the latest sync, dynamic connectivity fad with their I-Drive system and despite its many teething problems; people embraced the novelty of the concept. 

Just as the iPhone has become an essential communicator, more car manufacturers are looking at ways of integrating mobile device technology into car gadgets. Some argue that surely if taking your eyes off the road to use a mobile phone is illegal, the same should be true about systems such as BMW’s. Here you have to scroll though many different screens to set your climate control, choose radio stations, engage the sat-nav and also phone home. Where is the difference between these activities and simply phoning?

To help us in out thrill ride new car manufacturers have started producing many safety features to enable us to safely use the infotainment consoles. Stability control, ABS, collision monitoring and passenger radar devices all monitoring the road while we check the news reports and program our next destination into the sat-nav.

Perhaps this inbuilt sense of safety with the vast array of car gadgets that manufactures are developing just gives us a false sense of security and returning to a time before the arrival of the jet fighter, street machine will make better drivers of us rather than handing over the responsibility to cameras, radar and lane monitors.